I am sure this is going to get attacked for scaremongering and concern-trolling, but I mean, yeah. I have a rule of thumb for stuff like this, which is sometimes with a passive aggressive person, I just aggressively pretend they asked me a direct question or made a direct statement, and will respond as though they did. Im busy! The hubs and I do the same. Once we own that, and stop feeling guilty, etc., it becomes easier to seize the power, and it becomes easier to think of what we ARE going to say. So finding out if you have plans at a given time becomes an underhanded way of tricking you into agreeing to something, like LW mentions in point number 2. I have a couple of friends/acquaintances(sp? Want to go to the turnip festival with me or are you busy? Well, Im not busy but I also dont want to go to any turnip festival ever. Ahhhh the family stuff. How it came to need an actual (although formulaic) response, Im not sure. Dont ask each of us the same question. LW is pretty clearly not talking so much about people making casual small talk as people being roundabout manipulative. Nanani, that is absolutely true. Source: Facebook. But then again, Im always the person who answers strangers who say Are you X person with Who wants to know?. Thats a great answer! 1) Let the weekend memes begin! Reluctant runners just need a nudge. And they tend to be very very very sure of what counts as racism (nothing they do/say, of course), with an overlay of you should be grateful I am nice to you to wrap it all up. Its very jarring to see that thrown around when its a nasty slur here in the UK. That is my current standard response. Catching up on sleep, doing chores, spending time with my partner. and then if I do end up wanting to do whatever it is they want to do, suddenly my schedule cleared up! Theres also So threatening to make her move out is just not wise. Answer with small truths. Im usually free Wednesdays and Thursdays, or I could do a weekend if we plan ahead., Translation: I want to have dinner with you sometime. ), but I can tell you that even from that POV, I generally have few expectations of this kind of question. Me:why? Them: What are you doing this weekend? Shell show up at your house again, or track you down partway to school. Or something. How about you? If they push after that, theyre admitting theyre either not listening or not respecting my feelings. Im super introverted and have medium to high levels of anxiety, depending on the situation. 3. That stuff just wears on people. And suddenly many things became clear. Next week, tell me how it went? And then make myself a note to specifically ask about it. It feels invasive what I do on my weekends is my business. Dont do that to a friend. Like "How are you?" can be asked formally and informally, the response of that can be a unique one, too. Try these instead. Mind you, I am white and middle aged and cis-passing, if not actually middle class OR a lady, so this may not work as well for everybody I have strong memories of my MIL telling my husband, shortly after wed married, I need you to clean out the gutters. Or maybe you need to come this weekend and clean out the gutters. I really minded that! You?, Or ask when do you need an answer by as invitors do need to know for catering, planning and booking purposes. I dislike being asked this question too, except in my case its more that I dont want to be asked this question by coworkers, ever. I am so devoted to nail care now that it takes me 27 hours to get my tips right! Also, that is very common; very few people I know can really remember everything they are doing for months ahead. When Im asked that question (by people other than DD), I usually go with Why do you ask?. Them We need to have lunch soon Hmm, just tried re-creating my original comment and thats not showing up either. My response to that is usually a sassy Depends, why?. You can be too busy for a request, or have no conflict if you want. Its setting off the Gift of Fear sirens in my head. Find an answer. . Im trying to train her out of the habit. Something like this happens every single time. It's funny I don't even register the question "How are you?" (I've lived equal times on the West and East coasts of the US), but I see a couple of UK commenters upthread and when I lived there I never, ever got used to "You alright?" which, functionally, isn't that different. (A couple of these people suuuucked like, I thought I was safe with studying until a couple of people started telling me that that was interesting because we were in the same classes and they just ~got the material better~ and didnt need to study at all this week. When its done as the pre-request, I get really annoyed that the person wont just ask me directly. Now, when someone asks, I reply, Im not sure what Ill be in the mood for. If someone responds with an offer of plans, I can then say, Nice! I live in a face culture, so saving the face of the invitee who wants to turn your invitation down is very important. If Im 100% sure that I dont want to do the thing based on the asker I treat this as open license to complain about how busy I am. 1. But why would you feel entitled to her time to help with party favors for a party youre throwing? Leisure time is notI give up my leisure time to hem her pants or help her move back from college or make her dinner. I wanted to stayyou can make why do you ask? be a friendly lineand you probably should. And even if she did pay money (not rentbut to share in the household expense, which is different from rent, even if it is the same amount of money), I would still consider her to be part of my family and as such why WOULDNT she pitch in when I needed her to? I get a bit awkward when people ask me that question too, because of the whole half-agreeing to plans before theyre actually exposed (I never considered it nosy personally but I can see how it might come across that way). Every time you see Pushy Neighbor, you go into this mode. Nothing very interesting. Another get out the LW could use is, Im still figuring out my plans for that daywas there something you wanted us to do together? and then Yes, thatll work, if you want to do the thing, or Hm, I dont think I can fit that in, if you dontno need to specify that the thing that it wont fit into is a day of sitting around in your pajamas and binge-watching things on Netflix. But most of all, thats my time with my kids, and Ive realized that Im missing it. They may just be an indirect communicator, and Hey, want to go have dinner might feel too abrupt without any conversational preamble. Take care of your boundaries! Because this is very much a dumb conversation filler question and its not going to go away anytime soon. For a cashier: Great, how are you? just because they are probably required to ask as part of their job. May suggest reversing the order of operations? But Im willing to bet that LW knows that, and the reason he/she feels annoyed with the people asking it in his/her life are because theres a pattern and something bigger at work like maybe people trying to get him/her to do stuff, or, as he/she noted, people who want to hang out, but with him/her doing all the planning work. LW was quite clear that the coercive uses of it are the problem that makes LW resentful, which is not at all an extreme response, but a healthy one. A little of this, a little of that. I think it would be odd to preemptively take that away. Those things influence what I ask of my kid, and they influence how I ask it. Thats a very uncomfortable and isolating feeling. Be here at 6.. Justit can be a lot sometimes. Trust issues and controlling family? Theyre expecting to hear seeing a movie and doing some yardwork, not reciting my social security number out loud while treating my intimate medical issues or anything else not normally shared with a crowd. I was usually planning board game evenings and role playing games and I only tried to ask people whom I knew to be interested in what I was planning. The pushback on needing brain time though makes sense. How about you?. Paris color stylo eye shadow neon skirt Paris color riche le stylo eye shadow bronzed How much vitamin c does a clementine have Loreal paris color riche stylo smoky eye avant azure What to get a guy for valentine's day Paris stylo smoky eye shadow hollywood Why is friendship better than relationship Desculpa para sair mais cedo do trabalho View Each Day as an Opportunity, Not an Obligation, Everything That You Can't do Because You Have Kids. I would think that any event for which one needs to book a venue and/or hire a caterer would also be the sort of event to which one sends some sort of formal invitation, which is not really the case for the situations the LW describes. And I try to be easier on myself for not having more exciting weekend plans. Stopping people you vaguely know on the street, without a care for what theyre doing or where theyre going, invading their privacy without having asked for and received prior permission for a scheduled social encounter, and then taking up their precious time to interrogate their current mood is, not surprisingly, offputting to some! 96 views, 2 likes, 0 loves, 0 comments, 2 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from J.Cano: Law & Order: SVU - Best Episode When exercising the advantages of a perceived difference in class or power, however, refraining from using or responding how are you? is an old patrician tactic designed to keep the interlocutor in her place. And asking someone what theyre doing is not the same as issuing an invitation. This strikes me as so strange! What are you up to? Doing great, what are you doing here? Thats fair. I get what are you doing this weekend? or just what are you doing? on a Saturday morning. If an invitation to something materializes at this reply, I have no problem saying No. To those who are wondering why this is such a big deal when its just a social pleasantries thing: I *almost* put this in my original questions but left it out for length and (I thought) irrelevance -The question does not bug me at all when people ask at work or social functions as a way to make conversation. So, when they ask what youre doing this weekend and seem likely skip ahead to of course youre going to my potluck and bringing the thing I promised everyone youll bring without actually asking you and/or so you can babysit ALL WEEKEND LONG, be ok with letting them down. Giving my notebook a bath. Skip the part where you say Ill have to check my calendar or even Im not surejust go ahead and ask them what they have in mind! For people I know, the answer is closer to what you say is the norm in Sweden anything from Having a truly awesome day to Need more coffee to counteract the baby waking up an hour before the alarm. For close friends, I can and have answered with details about what the brain weasels are up to today. My MIL does thatshe asks DH if we can come to dinner, and he says, Ill have to ask Toots. Then she calls me and asks me, and I say, I have to ask DH. Really early on, she did this, and then laughed at my answer and said, I asked him, and he said he had to ask you. Me: No can do. But it can still be frustrating to deal with. Guys, sorry, I wont be able to make it., The kitty I am catsitting has fallen asleep in my lap. Its a conversation starter, and its my choice whether I continue the conversation by answering or by reflecting it back at them. OK, you want to ASK if hell help you w/ your home maintenance, fine, but these are not HIS chores anymore. And then coming up with all kinds of bizarre but obvious lies about how they reason theyre acting that way is solely for *my* benefit. ME: Great! I kind of resent that you assume I will tell you. If she has problems with overbearing family, then she needs to learn how to deal with overbearing family, but shes still gonna have to function at People Interactions 101, which includes whatre you doing this weekend., Its actually amazing how much supposedly required stuff you can avoid doing by just not doing it (sadly depending on your level of privilege; Im speaking from a white cis-woman perspective). Him: You must be doing something. Nothing special. Especially not in NYC, where housing is so tight, and especially when she doesnt have a job.). Since LW was talking about very short-term questions, I certainly hope no one is asking because they need to tell the caterer! We should definetely try to avoid stealth scheduling questions. Or only if you consider it important? What I usually say is, Not bad, not bad, how bout yourself?. You just need to say, like, Oh, not sure yet, how about you?. She had already asked him. (This one will definitely keep them guessing.) What are you up to? for those I am not interested in carving out space for.). And then they get all pissy because the girl is taken aback by being asked out so abruptly by this guy about whom she knows pretty much nothing except his appearance. (via Shutterstock) 7. Because if she werent a family member, Id throw her out on her ear; she sure as hell wouldnt be in my home with all her stuff. They were being blunt and probably didnt realize the pressure I felt to say yes to direct requests, and didnt understand why I felt hurt when, upon working up the courage to ask for something directly, it was turned down. Sam sends Julia a text at 9 PM on Saturday night, with an idea that could give the company an edge in customer service's call hold times. Why insist on these parental avenues of control and dominance over another adult, when it has already harmed your relationship and can only do more harm? I kind of like your signature line as a response! In my experience small-talking cashiers/customer service people, giving them an opening to chat is the surest way to get out of having to fill the conversation myself. If I have to treat her like a grownup, and not like my minor child that I can boss around, she can fucking treat ME like a grownup, and not like her mommy that she takes for granted..

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